Reed Market Rd. work affecting SE Bend stores

Southeast Bend’s Reed Market Road construction project enters its third phase on Sept. 8th. It has been going for over a year now, and businesses in that area are being affected in varying ways by the detours taking place.

“It’s all pretty well torn up here,” Expressway owner Tom Healy said Tuesday.

“It has been hard for some of the customers to get here,” Healy added.

The gas station and convenience store is staying open, regardless of the mess on the road outside their station.

“You know, we’re trying not to be an inconvenient store,” Healy said.

Drivers have used their parking lot as a cut-over to Reed Market. Police have been assigned by the city to watch their lot. Customers have gotten tickets and more.

It hasn’t been easy on them. It has been even harder on the coffee shop next door, which had to close its doors.

“You know, with all the construction, it makes it difficult to get here,” Healy said.

The cars that used to be going to their lot are being detoured somewhere else.

“I think it’s definitely been helping us out, bringing us traffic this way,” said Adrian May with The Coffee and Snack Factory, at Ninth Street and Wilson Avenue.

That’s where traffic used to going to 15th and Reed Market is being shuttled to.

It’s a boost up for a new business — and a speed bump to get over for older ones.

But the Expressway market is hanging in there.

“We’ve been here for 20 years, and we’re going to be here at the end of it,” Healy said.